Feds seize 82 domains accused of selling counterfeit goods

The long arm of the law says it has seized the domains of 82 outfits accused …

The Department of Justice has obtained seizure orders against a slew of commercial websites accused of selling a wide variety of counterfeit commodities, including DVD box sets, music, software, sports equipment and handbags—82 sites all told.

"By seizing these domain names, we have disrupted the sale of thousands of counterfeit items, while also cutting off funds to those willing to exploit the ingenuity of others for their own personal gain," declared Attorney General Eric Holder in a statement released on Monday.

The action is part of "Operation In Our Sites v. 2.0"—a joint effort launched by the DoJ and the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customers Enforcement. Over the summer, version 1.0 kicked the door down on just nine sites selling pirated first-run movies. In this latest campaign, Federal agents purchased all sorts of suspect offerings online (sunglasses too), then evaluated them for authenticity.

"If the goods were confirmed as counterfeit or otherwise illegal, seizure orders for the domain names of the websites that sold the goods were obtained from U.S. magistrate judges," the statement continues. "Individuals attempting to access the websites will now find a banner notifying them that the domain name of that website has been seized by federal authorities."

"It's nothing but theft..."

The disclosure didn't come with a list of the seized domains, but this is definitely a second shoe dropping on the DoJ's promise, made earlier this year, that a new intellectual property task force will soon bring together a host of federal enforcement agencies in an effort to "confront the growing number of domestic and international intellectual property (IP) crimes."

"Look, we used to avoid saying this in this town... Piracy is theft," Vice President Joe Biden declared as the White House released its Joint Strategic Plan on IP enforcement over the summer. "Clean and simple. It's nothing but theft."

So don't hold your breath following the number of departments taking credit for this bust. They include National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) led by ICE's Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The IPR includes partners from U.S. Customs and Border Protection; the FBI; the Department of Commerce; the Food and Drug Administration; the Postal Inspection Service; and five other government agencies.

Plus nine U.S. Attorneys' Offices were in on the action, from New York, District of Columbia, Florida, Colorado, Texas, California, Ohio, New Jersey, and Washington State.

No silver bullets

No surprise that Big Content is tickled pink about this move.

"No anti-piracy initiative is a silver bullet," proclaimed the Recording Industry Association of America in a release sent to us shortly after the bust announcement, "but targeted government enforcement against the worst of the worst rogue sites sends a strong message that illegally trafficking in creative works carries real consequences and won't be tolerated."

Ditto declared the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM).

"Given the state of the music industry economy, and the limited resources of our members to fight piracy, we applaud government support to ensure the rights of our community are protected from the criminal actions of those who are creating websites to illegally distribute our music," A2IM's statement concluded.

Gee, I feel so much more secure now that Homeland Security is on this one. Gotta love how the RIAA/MPAA is using the government and our tax dollars as their right hand of copyright "justice".

Don't you realize that it's only a matter of time before the Pirates drop anchor off our shore! When that happens, ALL SHALL BE LOST! The Department of Homeland Security is just trying to ensure our safety and wellbeing!

Gee, I feel so much more secure now that Homeland Security is on this one. Gotta love how the RIAA/MPAA is using the government and our tax dollars as their right hand of copyright "justice".

Don't you realize that it's only a matter of time before the Pirates drop anchor off our shore! When that happens, ALL SHALL BE LOST! The Department of Homeland Security is just trying to ensure our safety and wellbeing!

Ya by lessening out freedoms and rights to non we shall finally be protected from ourselves!

Gee, I feel so much more secure now that Homeland Security is on this one. We all know our security is threatened if you copied a digital file or bought a hand bag with a fake logo on it.

Gotta love how the RIAA/MPAA is using the government and our tax dollars as their right hand of copyright "justice".

These are all physical counterfeit (or otherwise infringing) goods that were being sold as genuine articles. Selling counterfeit goods has been a crime in this country for a long time. Why are we complaining about the government enforcing its existing laws?

Gee, I feel so much more secure now that Homeland Security is on this one. We all know our security is threatened if you copied a digital file or bought a hand bag with a fake logo on it.

Gotta love how the RIAA/MPAA is using the government and our tax dollars as their right hand of copyright "justice".

These are all physical counterfeit (or otherwise infringing) goods that were being sold as genuine articles. Selling counterfeit goods has been a crime in this country for a long time. Why are we complaining about the government enforcing its existing laws?

Further, now that law is extending itself to counterfeiting goods on the Internet which I don't have a problem with and with the signing of ACTA their hands will reach beyond US soil. Now we have to make sure their hands keep in check.

Well now that people can't buy that $400 hand bag for the $10 it cost to make it, I'm sure they will now save up their money to buy the real thing. And the all the artsy snobs will surely be back to making millions in no time.

The problem is that without the complete list of domains along with exactly what legal reasons were used to take down each one of them the public is unable to assess whether or not there is any viable legal concerns here. It is simple to just assume that the government did the right thing and that this take down was a textbook response to selling counter fit goods, but considering that a lot of digital laws are filled with so many holes it makes sense that this information should be public.

If any domain was added to this list for reasons which fall under a considerable gray area of law then it is a cause for at least some concern.

Gee, I feel so much more secure now that Homeland Security is on this one. We all know our security is threatened if you copied a digital file or bought a hand bag with a fake logo on it.

Gotta love how the RIAA/MPAA is using the government and our tax dollars as their right hand of copyright "justice".

Can't figure this one out since most of the products are produced in other countries because the factories have been shut down here in the USA, so in reality the American government is protecting mostly Chinese workers, or another way to look at it is the American Government is protecting American Corporations making goods in foreign countries, how nice. Now if the USA government would just crack down on these same companies by taking away their taxbreaks and forcing them to either produce here or move their head office to where their goods are being produced and quit hiding behind the American flag for their convenience.

And that's that. Piracy is no more. It's all been taken care of. They're all on the run now.

Yep.

I'm sorry, did I see anywhere in this article, other than the RIAA chimign in, that said anything about just one of these 82 sites taken out for piracy? Um, nope. Every one was a "commercial site" that "sold goods" that were "counterfeit."

This is not a tool that can be used against piracy. Most IP theft (not the pun) goes over IP, not aliased domain names. Torrent networks do rely on DNS. This is an anti-counterfeiting tool, not an anti-piracy one. Completely different markets here.

The problem is that without the complete list of domains along with exactly what legal reasons were used to take down each one of them the public is unable to assess whether or not there is any viable legal concerns here. It is simple to just assume that the government did the right thing and that this take down was a textbook response to selling counter fit goods, but considering that a lot of digital laws are filled with so many holes it makes sense that this information should be public.

If any domain was added to this list for reasons which fall under a considerable gray area of law then it is a cause for at least some concern.

There's no list because each case individually was a court action, they just chose to take them out on the same day. each of these 82 cases will have a public court record. Each is applicable to the FOIA. There is no requirement for the government to sort, consolidate, or list cases of a similar nature just to make them easier to find. If there was question about the legality of these takedowns, the company responsible either had the opportunity to show in court and defend themselves, or they have the ability to appeal (either to the public, or a higher court).

Their marketing department is awful. Seriously, get better names for your shit.

Anyway: it sounds like the domains were seized, but in at least one case the .info domain is still working for one of them, and the IP addresses were unaffected. So the sites are still, technically, accessible. They've just confiscated the DNS records.

Whether they did so with or without a court order would be good to know. Anyone got any info about that?

If you check the list of sites shut down there were a couple of p2p sites shut down so it was not just physical goods. The disturbing part was that I have not seen mention of them requiring any court orders, or making any warnings. They just bulled right in and shut it down. That makes me a little nervous.

The problem here doesn't seem to be that they did seize the domains, but rather that there was a certain lack of transparency in doing so. I'm perfectly fine with counterfeiters' domains getting seized, but there needs to be more transparency about why the domain was seized, as well as a better process to handle the case of domains being wrongly seized.

The Department of Justice has obtained seizure orders against a slew of commercial websites accused of selling a wide variety of counterfeit commodities, including DVD box sets, music, software, sports equipment and handbags—82 sites all told.

"By seizing these domain names, we have disrupted the sale of thousands of counterfeit items, while also cutting off funds to those willing to exploit the ingenuity of others for their own personal gain," declared Attorney General Eric Holder in a statement released on Monday.

The Department of Justice has obtained seizure orders against a slew of commercial websites accused of selling a wide variety of counterfeit commodities, including DVD box sets, music, software, sports equipment and handbags—82 sites all told.

"By seizing these domain names, we have disrupted the sale of thousands of counterfeit items, while also cutting off funds to those willing to exploit the ingenuity of others for their own personal gain," declared Attorney General Eric Holder in a statement released on Monday.

According to the article on Torrentfreak which was linked in an earlier comment, a handful of the domains seized were in fact torrent search sites rather than commerce sites trafficking in counterfeit goods.

Before this goes off the rails, let me say that insofar as this action is related to criminal prosecution of counterfeiters, I have no objections to it.

However, assuming the Torrentfreak information is valid, I am concerned by the government apparently throwing in a few "soft targets" as convenient collateral damage. I am also a bit confused by the involvement of Homeland Security. I can only guess the counterfeit goods were imported, thus falling under the "C" in Homeland Security's ICE division (which is "Customs" rather than "Customers" as the article states).

... If there was question about the legality of these takedowns, the company responsible either had the opportunity to show in court and defend themselves, or they have the ability to appeal (either to the public, or a higher court).

Well, it doesn't sound like they were given a chance to fight beforehand. Follow the link to the Torrentfreak article, where they discuss the "Torrent-Finder" site. Apparently there was no warning, and the site operator claims his site is doing no wrong for some obvious reasons.

I want to ask rhetorically, how much harm can be done to a business if it is suddenly barred from operating, without due process before hand?

Normally there are these procedures, where people are given a legal notice, and get a chance to argue against being hit with an injunction, before they are shut down. Maybe they shouldn't be?

This whole thing stinks to high heaven. Guilty and executed by proclamation, maybe you can appeal later.

These are all physical counterfeit (or otherwise infringing) goods that were being sold as genuine articles. Selling counterfeit goods has been a crime in this country for a long time. Why are we complaining about the government enforcing its existing laws?[/quote]

And that's that. Piracy is no more. It's all been taken care of. They're all on the run now.

Yep.

I'm sorry, did I see anywhere in this article, other than the RIAA chimign in, that said anything about just one of these 82 sites taken out for piracy? Um, nope. Every one was a "commercial site" that "sold goods" that were "counterfeit."

This is not a tool that can be used against piracy. Most IP theft (not the pun) goes over IP, not aliased domain names. Torrent networks do rely on DNS. This is an anti-counterfeiting tool, not an anti-piracy one. Completely different markets here.

""Look, we used to avoid saying this in this town... Piracy is theft," Vice President Joe Biden declared as the White House released its Joint Strategic Plan on IP enforcement over the summer. "Clean and simple. It's nothing but theft.""

Sigh, I'm glad he's only a show figure. Because that is stupid.

If I violated trademarks or pirated stuff, I'd be thrilled to be charged with theft so I could walk scott free.

There's no list because each case individually was a court action, they just chose to take them out on the same day. each of these 82 cases will have a public court record. Each is applicable to the FOIA. There is no requirement for the government to sort, consolidate, or list cases of a similar nature just to make them easier to find. If there was question about the legality of these takedowns, the company responsible either had the opportunity to show in court and defend themselves, or they have the ability to appeal (either to the public, or a higher court).

All I was trying to say is that it is a good thing for the public to be informed about the details surrounding these cases considering how immature our digital laws are. Our courts are forced to apply laws which were written before taking into consideration things like domains, digital property, and the internet in general all of the time.

It is not as simple as just allowing the courts to play their role and be done with it. If we are to adapt to the new age and write proper laws that fit it well, then cases such as these need to be observed, dissected, and criticized all while recognizing both it's flaws and merits. We can't do that without the details though which I hope some people will take the appropriate action to acquire and share in public space.

The problem is that without the complete list of domains along with exactly what legal reasons were used to take down each one of them the public is unable to assess whether or not there is any viable legal concerns here. It is simple to just assume that the government did the right thing and that this take down was a textbook response to selling counter fit goods, but considering that a lot of digital laws are filled with so many holes it makes sense that this information should be public.

If any domain was added to this list for reasons which fall under a considerable gray area of law then it is a cause for at least some concern.

There's no list because each case individually was a court action, they just chose to take them out on the same day. each of these 82 cases will have a public court record. Each is applicable to the FOIA. There is no requirement for the government to sort, consolidate, or list cases of a similar nature just to make them easier to find. If there was question about the legality of these takedowns, the company responsible either had the opportunity to show in court and defend themselves, or they have the ability to appeal (either to the public, or a higher court).

What court action? That's the point. There were no real investigations, no trials, no opportunity to show up in court and mount a defense, or else stories like this would not exist.

This is exactly the same style of action as the Australia website blacklist. If these sites were doing something illegal, then take them to court, have a trial, and seize everything if they are found guilty. Shit like this is just expediency in the name of big business.

""Look, we used to avoid saying this in this town... Piracy is theft," Vice President Joe Biden declared as the White House released its Joint Strategic Plan on IP enforcement over the summer. "Clean and simple. It's nothing but theft.""

Sigh, I'm glad he's only a show figure. Because that is stupid.

If I violated trademarks or pirated stuff, I'd be thrilled to be charged with theft so I could walk scott free.

Biden's MO has always been "open mouth, insert foot." That quote is nothing compared to half the crap he says.

Well now that people can't buy that $400 hand bag for the $10 it cost to make it, I'm sure they will now save up their money to buy the real thing. And the all the artsy snobs will surely be back to making millions in no time.

Matthew Lasar / Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.